This economy profile for Doing Business 2015 presents the 11 Doing Business indicators for Latvia. To allow for useful comparison, the profile also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator.
... See More + Doing Business 2015 is the 12th edition in a series of annual reports measuring the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business; for 2015 Latvia ranks 23. A high ease of doing business ranking means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and over time. Doing Business measures regulations affecting 11 areas of the life of a business known as indicators. Ten of these areas are included in this years ranking on the ease of doing business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. Doing Business also measures labor market regulation, which is not included in this years ranking. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2014 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period from January to December 2013).
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Economic growth is expected to almost double in EU11 (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia) in 2014, and continue to strengthen in 2015.
... See More + The northern countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania will continue to be amongst the fastest growing countries in the EU, despite the negative impact of falling external demand as growth slows in their main trading partners. Croatia is the only country expected to remain in recession, for a sixth consecutive year, in 2014, as declining domestic demand continues to outweigh export growth. Recovery is expected to be gradual, with growth not reaching pre-crisis rates for some time. Inflation rates are expected to remain below targets during 2014, with some countries already experiencing deflation, but as global commodity prices stabilize, activity increases and output gaps diminish, inflation is expected to gradually rise. Fiscal consolidation will continue in 2014 and 2015, but at a more gradual pace than in the previous years. Economic growth forecasts in the EU11 are subject to multiple risks, mainly on the downside, as the global financial situation remains fragile. Rising global interest rates coupled with volatile capital markets, or an extended period of regional geopolitical tensions could slow the European recovery and constrain exports, credit and investment in EU11. While labor market conditions have started to improve, the pace of job creation and reduction in unemployment rates are likely to be gradual. Many of the economies in the EU11 face the twin challenge of high youth unemployment and rapidly aging populations. EU11 countries also struggle with equipping the next generation with the skills necessary to achieve their full potential e.g. in literacy, math and science. The persistence of large numbers of inactive and unemployed youth therefore poses unique risks of creating a lost generation of workers. Understanding the cyclical and structural nature of youth unemployment is therefore important to mitigate the potentially damaging cycle between youth unemployment and broader economic growth and productivity.
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This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Latvia. In a series of annual reports, Doing Business assesses regulations affecting domestic firms in 189 economies and ranks the economies in 10 areas of business regulation, such as starting a business, resolving insolvency and trading across borders.
... See More + This years report data cover regulations measured from June 2012 through May 2013. The report is the 11th edition of the Doing Business series.
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This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in European Union (EU). It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, and OECD High Income.
... See More + The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2013, except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January to December 2012. Regional Doing Business reports capture differences in business regulations and their enforcement across countries in a single region. They provide data on the ease of doing business, rank each location, and recommend reforms to improve performance in each of the indicator areas. The report sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and employing workers. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. The data set covers 47 economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, 33 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 25 in East Asia and the Pacific, 25 in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 20 in the Middle East and North Africa and 8 in South Asia, as well as 31 OECD high-income economies. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why.
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This paper sheds light on the impact of improving employment and education conditions on poverty and social exclusion indicators. More specifically, it answers the following question: Will achieving the Europe 2020 national targets on employment and education lead countries to achieve the Europe 2020 poverty and social exclusion target with no other policy interventions?
... See More + The paper presents a simple partial equilibrium model that is flexible enough to be implemented in a number of different settings and uses widely available household survey data. The simulation model analyzes poverty and social exclusion outcomes in response to changes in education completion rates and employment rates. The model is applied to ten of the European Unions new Member States -- Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia -- and the models performance is evaluated through a validation exercise. The Europe 2020 national employment targets are ambitious in many of the new Member States, given historical employment patterns in the countries. Especially in light of the slow and uncertain recovery, labor markets remain weak and employment rates in 2020 could fall short of rates targeted by national policy makers. In this eventuality, the poverty and social exclusion goals may not be reached in many of the new Member States without additional policy measures.
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This brief focuses on gender in Latvia. The World Bank Group is committed to including a gender lens in its activities and addressing gender-specific challenges to reduce inequalities between women and men.
... See More + Europe and Central Asias Gender at a Glance series is a new collection of data summaries that seek to present a more nuanced view of the heterogeneous gender situation in each of the regions 30 countries. The main objective of the briefs is to provide a quick reference guide for interested users and to increase the visibility of gender-relevant data in the region. The briefs offer basic data on gender indicators and key outcomes for each country alongside regional, sub-regional, and income-level comparative benchmarks. Each brief tells a story about the relationship between gender and national outcomes in endowments (education, health, and demographics), access to economic opportunity, and agency.
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Economic crises can be particularly arduous for poor and vulnerable people. In particular, job losses stemming from economic downturns undercut the ability of more vulnerable households to support themselves.
... See More + Public works programs, which help sustain poor households through temporary employment, are one method used by governments to lessen the impacts of crises. The World Bank is focused on helping countries end poverty. Key to this knows which programs do and do not yield tangible results. To help policymakers assess the effectiveness of Latvias public works program, the World Bank supported an evaluation of the government-sponsored public works initiative, which was launched in response to the global financial crisis of 2008-2010. The evaluation found that the program successfully reached its intended target, helping Latvias worst-off cope with the crisis by increasing their short-term incomes. For policymakers and development experts, this evaluation underscores the usefulness of public works programs as emergency social safety net instruments even in upper-middle income countries. This Evidence to Policy note was jointly produced by the World Bank Group, the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF), and the British governments Department for International Development.
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The 14 indicators describe a countrys macro-fiscal environment to identify constraints or opportunities for health systems financing. For each indicator two aspects are important: level and trend.
... See More + A country with a 10 percent unemployment rate that has fallen from 15 percent may be in better shape than one with an 8 percent unemployment rate that has risen from 4 percent. It is also important to benchmark to group averages of countries in the same Word Bank (WB) region (EAS, ECS, LCN, MEA, NAC, SAS, or SSF) and income group (HIC, upper MIC, lower MIC, or LIC).
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The Country Profile for Latvia is based on data from the Enterprise Surveys conducted by the World Bank. The benchmarks include the averages for the group of countries in Eastern Europe Central Asia and the Latvia income group.
... See More + The enterprise surveys focus on the many factors that shape the decisions of firms to invest. These factors can be accommodating or constraining and play an important role in whether a country will prosper or not. An accommodating business environment is one that encourages firms to operate efficiently. Such conditions strengthen incentives for firms to innovate and to increase productivity, key factors for sustainable development. A more productive private sector, in turn, expands employment and contributes taxes necessary for public investment in health, education, and other services. In contrast, a poor business environment increases the obstacles to conducting business activities and decreases a countrys prospects for reaching its potential in terms of employment, production, and welfare. Enterprise surveys are conducted by the World Bank and its partners across all geographic regions and cover small, medium, and large companies. The surveys are applied to a representative sample of firms in the non-agricultural economy. The sample is consistently defined in all countries and includes the entire manufacturing sector, the services sector, and the transportation and construction sectors. Public utilities, government services, health care, and financial services sectors are not included in the sample. Enterprise surveys collect a wide array of qualitative and quantitative information through face-to-face interviews with firm managers and owners regarding the business environment in their countries and the productivity of their firms. The topics covered in Enterprise Surveys include infrastructure, trade, finance, regulations, taxes and business licensing, corruption, crime and informality, finance, innovation, labor, and perceptions about obstacles to doing business.
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This tenth edition of Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations.
... See More + It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting eleven areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and employing workers. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 185 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Latvia. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2012 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January - December 2011).
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This paper investigates the drivers of growth and prosperity in a group of eleven European countries -- Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia (the EU11).
... See More + Since the EU11 began the transformation process, this group of emerging countries has made impressive strides as developing market economies and is anchoring development in European Union institutions. There are reasons to believe that the convergence of EU11 income per capita to Western European levels will continue, but will proceed more slowly. The paper concludes that trade and financial integration have sped along at a spectacular pace in the EU11 in the recent past, although trade in modern services and the integration of government bond and equity markets are somewhat behind. As in the rest of Europe, demographic developments will pose huge challenges for the sustainability of public finance in the EU11 economies. In the next several decades, the EU11 labor force is expected to contract more than labor forces in the rest of the European Union, making it even more urgent that countries in the region reform pension systems, change migration policy, and find incentives to attract talent to the region. Closing the gap with the rest of the European Union in educational attainment levels and improving education quality might significantly soften the constraints imposed by the demographic threats and produce sizable returns in terms of additional income convergence.
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The health equity and financial protection datasheets provide a picture of equity and financial protection in the health sectors of low-and middle-income countries.
... See More + Topics covered include: inequalities in health outcomes, health behavior and health care utilization; benefit incidence analysis; financial protection; and the progressivity of health care financing. The tables in this report show how health outcomes, risky behaviors and health care utilization vary across asset (wealth) quintiles and periods. The quintiles are based on an asset index constructed using principal components analysis. Benefit-Incidence Analysis (BIA) shows whether, and by how much, government health expenditure disproportionately benefits the poor. The distribution of subsidies depends on the assumptions made to allocate subsidies to households. Under the constant unit cost assumption, each unit of utilization is assumed to cost the same and is equal to total costs incurred in delivering this type of service divided by the number of units of utilization.
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To mitigate the impact of the 2008-2010 global financial crisis on vulnerable households, the Government of Latvia established Workplaces with Stipends, an emergency public works program that targeted registered unemployed people who were not receiving unemployment benefits.
... See More + This paper evaluates the targeting performance and welfare impacts of the program. It exploits the over-subscription of Workplaces with Stipends to define a control group. The paper finds that the program was successful at targeting poor and vulnerable people, and that leakage to non-poor households was small. Using propensity score matching, the paper finds that the programs stipend mitigated the impact of job loss and, in the short term, raised participating household incomes by 37 percent relative to similar households not benefiting from the program. The paper also finds that the foregone income for this program was less than foregone incomes estimated in other countries. This suggests a dearth of income-generating opportunities in Latvia; thus the program provided temporary employment opportunities and helped the unemployed mitigate the impact of the crisis. However, relative to the depth of the crisis in Latvia, the Workplaces with Stipends program scale was small, which meant long waiting periods for program applicants.
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Latvia joined the World Bank in August 1992. Since then, the Bank has played an important role in supporting Latvias transition through lending, policy dialogue, and analytical and advisory assistance.
... See More + The World Banks mission in Latvia is to make the most of its European Union (EU) membership, help its economy grow, create jobs, strengthen government institutions, and improve the lives of all citizens, particularly the poor. Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) has funded one activity in Latvia: a grant approved in 2000 to help establish a multi-sector regulatory commission. This activity built on and completed work initiated by other donors, especially the EU and World Bank, which had been active in providing assistance towards consensus building for creating a multi-sector regulator. Latvia became an EU country in 2004 and is no longer eligible to receive PPIAF funding. Latvia requested PPIAF assistance in 2000 to plan and coordinate the implementation of its action plan to prepare a regulatory commission following the passage of a law establishing a multi-sector regulator funded out of the World Banks institutional development fund and a policy and human resources development grant.
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Ratings for the Safety Net and Social Sector Reform Program Project for Latvia were as follows: outcomes were satisfactory, the risk to development outcome was moderate, the Bank performance was satisfactory, and the Borrower performance was also satisfactory.
... See More + Some lessons learned included: in Latvia, the comprehensive spending review undertaken jointly by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) allowed the Government to rapidly design a relevant program to respond to the crisis. An important lesson from Latvia was that investing in economic and social data analysis in good times and on a regular basis is all the more relevant in a time of crisis, especially given that the cost of such practice remains low. The World Banks support through the Special Development Policy Loan (SDPL) series provided a framework for the Governments policy reforms in the social sectors during a time of deep fiscal cuts. The reform experience in Latvia has shown that pension expenditures exhibit very high inertia in times of recessions and even extremely reform-minded governments are not able to quickly reduce spending on such programs. Pension spending actually increased by 27 percent in real terms over 2008-2010. Although the Constitutional Court ruling about the pension reform was very specific and related to the lack of consultation on allowing cuts in pensions, the Government did not pursue their reform. Budget rules should take into account economic cycles. It is important to consider the trajectory of social protection expenditures particularly unemployment benefits and social safety net support programs across the economic cycle in designing fiscal rules and buffer-stock savings mechanisms.
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